ECONOMY AND SELF VALUE

As I have been studying first century culture, I have come to realize the impact that social economies have played in determining where we place value.

 

To Love is to value.

 

It seems to me that as we began to value things as a society external to ourselves - money being the most impactful - we also devalued each other and, more importantly, our inner self. (Substitute Love for value in any of that last statement).

 

So all that we have been saying about needing to love ones self in order to love another, in order to love for the sake of loving or from an identity as Love, and not for the sake of needing someone else to love you/value you, can be framed in this social tendency to value things outside the self - thus neglecting to know the self as that of the greatest value; the value from which all other beneficial value springs forth. ("Love the Lord your God" means love yourself - God in you).

 

I have always been intrigued with the Christian use of terms coming from the Greek culture that externalize the dynamics of self-loving (value)  - all based on the term Oikos - eco  or household/family - these translations from Hebrew coming at the same time as the economic culture of society was developing moved the "household" and everything that is associated with a balanced and loving household, exterior to the individual psyche or soul. Our interpretations of value in a religious sense began to emphasize how we behaved more than who we are.

Incidentally, Ecumenicus (Latin) comes from Greek oikoumenikos, oikein to inhabit, oikos house. The spirit inhabits (oikein) the same house: the body, the community, humanity, the Earth...the cosmos...

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own..." (1 Cor. 6:19).

Who is living in you?

While we humans are both doers and be-ers, we express something active or we hold it as our "being" nature (identity), we seem to default our most obvious sense of self very often to the doing, the active expression of desire, which is external and "worldly" expression of the self. While within, in the being, is the True Self, the expression of God self. When we are present in the being self, we remember who we truly are. And the do-er should always emanate from the Be-er. The active Lover should always emanate from the Love, that we are - our divine nature. We don't 'purify' or find our essence in the Doing in the same way we can find it in the Being.

Personal integrity is your first priority. Your I AM is your relationship with God. You cannot be honest or effective or TRUE in the world unless you have your "house" in order first. This is why you must learn to BE and let your DOing come from your BEing. 

_/\_Peggy

 

Eros and Logos ~ The Energies of Relationship

Eros is LOVE energy – not just sexual energy. Eros in philosophy and psychology is used in this
wider sense, as an equivalent to "life energy."

Desire is another word that has been used for eros. Not just sexual desire (as we, in the West use it), eros is spiritual desire, it is the holy longing. Erotic or creative energy IS the spiritual aspect of human beings.

"Spirituality concerns what we do with desire (eros)...healthy souls must do dual jobs: The soul must give us energy and fire, so that we do not lose our vitality (chaos) and it must keep us glued together, integrated so that we do not lose our spiritual identity as Oneness.” Ronald Rolheiser OMI, The Holy Longing

Marc Gafni, philosopher and Rabbi, Director of the Center for World Spirituality discusses the exile of eros, “The fall of the temple symbolizes the exile of the Erotic energy. Where did it go? The erotic is exiled in the sexual! We have to understand, that the sexual models the erotic, but it doesn’t exhaust the erotic.”

In Carl Jung's analytical psychology, the counterpart to Eros is Logos, a Greek term for the principle of rationality. Jung considers Logos to be a masculine principle, while Eros is a feminine principle. According to Jung:

“Woman’s psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.”

Aspects of the Feminine, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 65.

What happens when our notion of God as psychic relatedness is tossed out the window for a dominant idea of objective interest?

With every reconciliation of opposing forces or views, something new is created.  The relationship between two is - in and of itself- an entity. "Wherever two or more are gathered, there am I also..." Between the human, Jesus, and God, the Christ is the new entity (or at least our realization of the Christ is new). Christ exists for every human relationship with God. And Christ is realized through the path of LOVE, by accepting an identity of LOVE for yourself, just as Jesus accepted LOVE as his identity. When we become psychically related to God as LOVE, then we can act – we can have objective interest - in the world as LOVERS.  

"Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemy." These Loves are the reconciling force for humanity. If you practice these Loves in extraordinary humility, both inner love and active outer love, you will attain the "mind of Christ" the divine relationship through which God and man are reconciled.

But you must practice LOVE through your actions and your thoughts. And you must LOVE God first, by loving who you are; by claiming your true Self, which is LOVE. And you must open yourself to God through silence, for "Silence is God's first language." This communication with God is necessary for recognizing yourself as Godly. As you resolve within, as you reconcile yourself with God, bringing forth Christ in you, you reconcile your actions with others. Communication with God and communication with others is how reconciliation takes place. Prayer, meditation, receptivity is communication with God and speech or artistic (creative) expression is Logos – communication between humans.

Reconciliation implies communication as the means by which it is achieved; communication flowers fully where reconciliation exists. The two reinforce each other.

Eros and Logos, yin and yang, being and doing, inner essence and outer expression, let LOVE be who you are and what you do….this is the mantra of all religions, in the words of each unique culture.

Peace be with you~ _/\_ Peggy 


Artwork: Lord Shiva, Parvati and Shiva Linga

Notes on the origins of Eros and Logos (from Wikipedia)

Logos (/ˈloʊɡɒs/, UK /ˈlɒɡɒs/, or US /ˈloʊɡoʊs/; Greek: λόγος, from λέγω lego "I say") is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason,"^[1][2] it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge.

Eros (/ˈɪərɒs/ or US /ˈɛrɒs/; Ancient Greek: Ἔρως, "Desire"), in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid^[2] ("desire"). Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite.

According to Hesiod (c. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros was a primordial god, that is, he had no parents. He was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia (the Earth), and Tartarus (the Abyss or the Underworld).^[5]

Parmenides (c. 400 BC), one of the pre-socratic philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence.^[6]

The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night (Nyx).^[3] Aristophanes (c. 400 BC), influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros and then of the entire human race:

At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night (Nyx), Darkness (Erebus), and the Abyss (Tartarus). Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love (Eros) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light.

Opposing-Transcending Life Forces (dual and nondual perception)

I have recently been meditating on kataphatic and apophatic perception - active and passive ways of seeing/describing an experience. What it "is" and what it "is not." These terms are used in Christian literature to describe approaches to union with God.

The concept of active force and passive force exists in many applications and cultures. Hegel's thesis - antithesis - synthesis; Gurdjieff's law of three...and the ancient Chinese idea of yin-yang.

Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity and nighttime. (formless, receptivity)

Yang, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime. (form, causality)

Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities. The potential for each exists within the other. Thus, they transform each other. A one is receding the other is becoming, like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. The interaction of the two gives birth to things. whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle.

What it "is" and what it "is not." Like living and dying…. like this:

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”

― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 Saturday thoughts. _/\_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS


Sources: Yin and Yang Wikipedia:
Osgood, Charles E. "From Yang and Yin to and or but." Language 49.2 (1973): 380–412 . JSTOR. 16 November 2008, jstor.or
Beautiful Artwork by Sharon Cummings at fineartamerica


The Artistry of Conscience - adapted from The Wisdom Way of Knowing, by Cynthia Bourgeault

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

 Conscience in the wisdom way of knowing is not a ethical term, although an ethic certainly flows from conscience. Conscience is the active spirit of consciousness. It is "the heart's own ability to see the divine hologram in any situation, no matter how obscured, and to move spontaneously and without regard for its personal well-being in alignment with that divine wholeness." CB

 
With a purified eye of the heart, one can move into emotional tension with compassion, shifting the energy through the quality of one's own aliveness. Like St Frances of Assisi, you embrace the leper standing before you with his begging bowl, because the eye of your heart tells you that only that embrace will restore the image of God in the brokenness. Or like Jesus, you are willing to go to the cross rather than meet violence with violence.

 "Conscience (acting out of higher consciousness) is the pearl of great price; it is the both supreme realization and the instrument of visionary seeing. It is the capacity always and everywhere to see the whole of God yearning to become manifest in all our human beings and doings, like the full of the moon faintly present behind the crescent. With the awakening of this eye, you no longer see Wisdom, you become Wisdom. You become a channel of God's peace, and the greatest of all artists as you dance with the "the love that moves the stars and the sun." CB

 

May the courage of compassion live pure and strong in your heart, and through the Wisdom of conscience, bring you truth and peace. Peggy

Reconciliation

For in the end,
We will conserve only what we love,
We will love only what we understand,
We will understand only what we are taught.
— Baba Dioum

I recently watched  video program by Franciscan Father Richard Rohr in which he outlined the 4 steps or stages of meditation. He did this as prequel to an exercise in which he instructed students to find an object they wished to commune with (outdoors is a good place to do this) and use the object as the "focal point" of the meditation. The focal point is similar to the mantra or a special word (as in centering prayer), in that it allows the meditator to have one point of "thinking" for the busy mind to return to in order to drop into non-thinking. The focal point allows the meditator to practice observing without judging, which leads to the ability to 1) observe the self, with subsequent 2) experiencing the self.   Baba Dioum's wisdom (above) describes the process. Words in bold type are Bab Dioum's poetic concepts applied to outcomes of Rohr's meditation stages.

The ultimate goal of meditation is to allow the mind to move from conscious duality, that is, a reference place that judges in order to see differences and define thoughts (FORM) to conscious nonduality, which is a mental reference point without judgment that allows for all thoughts and no thoughts (FORMLESS). This latter is the contemplative mind.

The Teaching (which tells the process of reconciliation):
The stages Fr Rohr asked his students to attempt in their mediation were as follows:

Stage I - Be aware of the object without defining it.  To be aware without allowing the mind to react is to begin to REST in a larger consciousness.

Stage II -  (The Understanding) Continue to observe the object without judgment. This is a continuation of Stage I, the difficulty of meditation is to achieve a lasting state of nonjudgmental awareness. This Stage leads to respect for the object and a feeling of JOY within the student. "The judging mind is incapable of joy." RR

Stage III - (The Loving) Allow the object to speak to you, to reveal itself to you, to name itself. This stage further requires the student to let go of the defining/judging mind. If we are listening to the object (or truly listening to another person, for that matter) we are, in a sense, waiting for them to define things for us. Here, we practice withholding judgment as the object speaks to us on a level that invites us into a new way of experiencing the object without thinking it or defining it. We sense our self in relationship with or communion with the object. The outcome of Stage III is deep respect for the object and for our relationship with the object. We realize that we are One with the object. We discover that the source of all thought and feeling about the object is our self. This stage elicits a deep feeling of connectedness and LOVE. In Stage III we realize our self as the source of loving kindness. "The way you love anything is the way you love everything." RR

Stage IV - (The Conserving) Contented Consciousness. Stage IV is often an unconscious experience. It is a stage of completely resting in the spacious universe within. We are One with all else, there are no definitions or judgments. This is nondual consciousness in its completely experiential capacity. At this stage we feel an expansiveness or spaciousness about our self. It is, indeed, our formless being (pure Spirit or energy) that we encounter here.

When you think about these stages of meditation, you may recognize that these are the same stages described for Lectio Divina, divine reading of scripture. Yes, this is exactly the same approach. In lectio divina, the words on a page are the object. Lectio - we  read it or become aware of it, Meditatio - we meditate on it or simply sit in non-judgment of it, Oratio - it speaks to us, tells us something deeper than words and Contemplatio - we rest in com-union with the message in "the eternal presence of God."

This practice of silent prayer and meditation takes many forms and is as ancient as humans are human. This is the practice of evolving, maturing the Spiritual self or the formless self in BEING that which is eternally JOYful, unconditionally LOVE-ing and eternally in harmonious/PEACE-ful relationship (communion) with all of Life. What is reconciled within will find its reflection without.

May the practice lead you to this place of REST, JOY, LOVE, COM-UNION waiting patiently within for your awareness. And may you find, there, sacred union with the Divine that IS you and also so much more than you. Namaste!

Peggy

Ash Wednesday - Humility and Trust

The Journey of Lent is a Wilderness journey. In the wilderness, survival resources must be carefully rationed. One of the rituals observed in Lent is fasting, a discipline intended to simulate the scarcity of the wilderness.  Some people fast from meat, or soda, or TV. The long- practiced spiritual discipline of fasting is designed to empty one’s self, to reduce one's neediness, in order for the Spirit to keep and fill you. The symbolism of fasting is that doing without your most basic needs, food and water, is an act of trust and submission. We submit our most basic needs in trust that God will provide, much like the ancient Israelites trusted God in the wilderness to provide the manna needed to sustain life.

From a psychological standpoint, submission in trust is called humility. Psychologically, humility is to let go the idea that you are in ultimate control of what you think you need for comfort and happiness, be it material or intangible. We like to think we control our circumstances as well as our attitudes and perspectives, but very often we are not. And very often, the attitude we choose is not an attitude that reflects the benevolent love of God…either toward others or toward our self.  In theological language we call humility or self emptying kenosis. Fasting is a symbol of kenosis or self emptying, which is essentially the willingness to reduce your neediness – physiological and psychological – to humble yourself in a gesture of trust and prayer before God. It is no mistake that the root of humility is humus – dirt, soil (ashes) – the same root as human. It is in the Wilderness of humility that we accept our humanness – our inability to count on anything but God to provide everything we need.

“But know this,” says YHWH: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear open your heart not your clothes!” Return to YHWH your God, who is gracious and deeply loving as a mother, quick to forgive, abundantly tender-hearted – and relents from inflicting disaster." Joel 2:12.

“And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8

Peace be with you on the Lenten journey ~ Peggy

Artwork from faithinallah.org

Morning Prayer

Matins.

I.

Somewhere out at the edges, the night
Is turning and the waves of darkness
Begin to brighten the shore of dawn.

The heavy dark falls back to earth

And the freed air goes wild with light,
The heart fills with fresh bright breath
And thoughts stir to give birth to colour.

II.

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,
Delight of eyes,
Wonder of whisper,
Intimacy of touch,
Eternity of soul,
Urgency of thought,
Miracle of health,
Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Gentle in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.

John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes, Exploring Our Yearning to Belong

 

Blessings of peace, love and joy to all on the cusp of this glorious new day! Peggy